The HPP list highlights projects of great strategic importance to
the goal of freedom for all computer users. A committee of free
software activists, assembled in 2014, spent a year
soliciting feedback from the free software community for the
latest revision of the list.

"As the technological landscape has shifted over the last decade
since the first version of the list was published, threats to
users' freedom to use their computers on their own terms have
changed enormously," said Benjamin Mako Hill, who is part of the
High Priority Projects committee and also a member of the FSF's
board of directors. "The updated High Priority Projects list is a
description of the most important threats, and most critical
opportunities, that free software faces in the modern computing
landscape."

Launched in 2005, the first version of the HPP list
contained only four projects, three of them related to
Java. Eighteen months later, Sun began to free Java
users.

While the FSF does not ask to run or control projects on the HPP
list, it uses its position and visibility in the community to
help bring them beneficial help and attention, including directly
supporting development for some.

"We've seen the High Priority Projects List guide contributors and
funding to important free software projects," said FSF executive
director John Sullivan. "We are committed to making the list more
active than it has been in the past, by drawing on the immense
expertise in the free software community. I hope others will
support us, both financially and with their input, so that this
can become a sort of annual strategic plan for advancing computer
user freedom."

The latest revision of the list includes nine project areas,
encompassing software projects, advancements in free
software-compatible hardware, and efforts to expand and deepen
the inclusivity of the free software community. Also, there is
now a changelog to document revisions to the list. The
committee published a full explanation of its work in March,
and several members of the committee shared its findings at
last year's LibrePlanet conference.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development
and use of free (as in freedom) software – particularly the GNU
operating system and its GNU/Linux variants – and free
documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread
awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the
use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and
gnu.org, are an important source of information about
GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
https://my.fsf.org/donate. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA,
USA.

More information about the FSF, as well as important information
for journalists and publishers, is at
https://www.fsf.org/press.